May Day 1971

May Day was marked in Britain with a mixture of celebration and protest. Main targets of protest were the Tories and their Industrial Relations Bill. In London Mr John Gollan, general secretary of the Communist Party, told a rally in Hyde Park that workers must be prepared again to use industrial action if the Bill is to be defeated. London marchers carried posters celebrating international solidarity and demanding: End the Indo-China war; Free political prisoners in Greece and Spain; Release Angela Davis and the Soledad Brothers.*

* (Release Angela Davis and the Soledad Brothers - Angela Davis - lecturer of philosophy at University of California, a young American Negro Communist; was imprisoned on charges alleging conspiracy and murder; progressive people in England joined the world-wide campaign against Angela Davis' imprisonment. The Soledad Brothers - three of the Black Panther Party leaders, imprisoned on the same charges; the two brothers - George Jackson and Jonathan Jackson - were murdered in prison in the autumn of 1971.)